How to Disable Yahoo’s Theft of Firefox’s Open a New Tab

If you like puzzles you might try to figure this one out. If you install a Yahoo toolbar into Mozilla’s Firefox you’ll discover that it hijacks Firefox’s new tab page. If you click the new tab button on Firefox you should get a blank and untitled page. But once you’ve installed the Yahoo toolbar instead of a blank page you’ll find that a new tab defaults to Yahoo’s search page. This appears to be part of Firefox forever, until the end of recorded time, or at least until you figure out how to get rid of it.

You can disable the Yahoo toolbar – no luck. A new tab still goes to Yahoo search. You can uninstall the Yahoo toolbar. Nope, you’re still going to Yahoo search. You can uninstall anything on your computer that says “Yahoo” and the new tab button still goes to Yahoo search. You can search Google about this problem and you’re likely not to find how to rid Firefox of this annoying tic. You can search Yahoo and you still won’t get an answer. Both searches will reveal that other people are having this problem and that they don’t seem to be able to solve it.

I understand that this is not the Spanish Inquisition, nor all out thermonuclear war, nor bubonic plague, nor genital herpes – but it is a pain and a challenge. So if you’ve got this problem and are troubled by it, here’s how to get rid of it. First you can avoid it altogether by not installing Yahoo’s toolbar, but it often sneaks onto your browser as part of another installation.

Mozilla installs two versions of Firefox. Plain old Firefox and Firefox Safe Mode. You can find both versions by clicking the Start button, then click All Programs. Find the Mozilla Firefox folder. Click on it and you will see both versions of Firefox. Make sure that Firefox is closed before going any further. Click the Safe Mode icon. The following dialog box will appear. Do not confuse Firefox Safe Mode with Windows Safe Mode; they are two different things. [To enter safe mode in Firefox 4 and beyond click the Firefox icon while holding the shift key.]

Click the Disable all add-ons as is shown above. Then click Make Changes and restart. What Yahoo has done is to add an invisible add-on. Since you can’t see it when you look at your Firefox add-ons (under tools/add-ons) and plug-ins, you can’t disable it. Thus you have to disable all of them to get rid of the noxious intrusion. Why a reputable firm like Yahoo would do something usually associated bad guy hackers is hard to fathom. It may be a mark of their desperate financial condition. Anyway, when you next start Firefox all of your add-ons are disabled, but they’re not gone. Go to tools/Add-ons and enable the plug-ins and extensions that you want. You’ve likely accumulated a whole bunch that you don’t need or want. This will give you the chance to use only those add-ons you really need.

Even if you don’t have this problem, that it exists is another demonstration that you should not trust anyone but your mother. She’s the only one in the universe who really has your best interests at heart even if you don’t recognize that she’s right when she tells you what to do. Always listen to Mom. And stay away from Yahoo.

Added January 10, 2012 – For newer versions of Firefox you can restart in Safe Mode via “Help -> Restart with Add-ons disabled…” A Safe Mode options window will appear when it restarts.

I wonder if there’s something similar with Real Player?? I am terrified of it as everytime I’ve loaded it, it takes over all media, even that which it can’t play. So my only solution is to do without it. So I miss some internet broadcasts. Even making something else a default player doesn’t work.

Thank you! This was driving me CRAZY. For me Yahoo! was still persisting even after I disabled all the add-ons but after I selected ‘Reset all user preferences to Firefox defaults’ on the Safe Mode window, that cleared it up. Thanks for setting me on the right track!

Thanks a lot Neil. Even if it took 10 minutes to find your article it is worth it. I cannot imagine it as well that Yahoo would do this. It is not a big deal but it feels like they are being handcuffed. I wonder if they have Yahoo has any comment on this.

Thank your mother for me for being an instrument in bringing into this world:)

Thanks – I tried other things without success and this finally did it! However, when following your instructions I finally found the stupid Freeze.com NetAssistant – it was in my Extensions – not Add-ons like others were stating, so I didn’t find it. So I’m not sure if finally disabling that along with everything else is what did it, or if I truly had some invisible Yahoo add-on. Now that it is disabled, I cannot delete the Freeze.com thing but I’ll leave it as-is.

Thank you so very much. I have no idea what I did, but yahoo suddenly appeared as my default search engine and completely hijacked everything. I even gave the damn thing a go thinking maybe it wont be so bad – but my god, what a pile of crud!! I thought I’d solved the problem as you said when I uninstalled everything that said Yahoo on my system, but no. Am so super super super grateful for your post, the step by step instructions, and the screen grab. Hey presto – all fixed!! You’re a star! A bright shining star.

No wonder Yahoo! is so impertinent. According to Wikipedia a Yahoo is “a noun, meaning a brute, a crude person, often lacking in intelligence, and uninterested in culture, a yokel, hillbilly”. Jonathan Swift in his novel Gulliver´s Travels called such creatures Yahoos.

Right on man! My thoughts were *exactly* as yours. Why would a reputable company like Yahoo do such a dirty and low thing? They must be financially desperate, like a drug addict junkie who’ll do anythign to get his next fix. Thanks for the tip and I’ll try it out right now.

Along with this issue, instead of disabling all add ons, I found by process of elimination in my add ons, that the problem on mine was the Freeze.com NetAssistant Copyright (c) 2010 W#i Holdings, LLC,. All rights reserved. That is what was causing the issue on mine, though I found that I could disable it, but can not uninstall it.

Here’s the easy, get rid of it for good fix: It’s done within Firefox. Enter [about:config] in the url address box. Click “I’ll be careful. I promise”. In the field, type “extensions.netassistant” (no quotes). Right click on the field: “extensions.netassistant.tabsearch.url”, click on , either delete its string or enter your own. I’ve entered “https://encrypted.google.com” (this is a beta encrypted search by Google) just as a personal satisfaction against Yahoo. Do the same for:”extensions.netassistant.url” field.
NOTE: If you haven’t modified your Firefox configuration before and you don’t feel comfortable in what you are about to do, BACKUP! The backup procedure can be found at: http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/backing%20up%20your%20information. Or just do a Google search for “backup Firefox pref.js”.

Thank you for this article! I was so angry that I forward the information to my state’s AG! I just don’t understand why Yahoo and other “reputable” sites feel the need to do crap like this. If people are not using their product, they shouldn’t hijack people’s browsers. They should improve their services! Talk about lack of ethics.

After all that tinkering with [about:config], I may have found the simplest solution of all:
-Close all browsers.
-Go to [control panel]
-Click [add/remove programs]
-Remove “net assistant for Firefox” (may also be called “net assistant for Mozilla”)
-That’s it. Restart Firefox and see if it worked.

You are WONDERFUL. This has been driving me crazy! YAHOO SUCKS! To the user who said Yahoo is intrusive… you are right. In fact, I pulled down my underpants, held a mirror down there, and guess what? I found Yahoo up my butt too. Now, I need someone to tell me how to get them outta there!

My opinion of yahoo was already low what with their trying to sneak their damn toolbars in with EVERY DAMN DOWNLOAD WIZARD EVER MADE, but this takes the cake. At least they give you the option of unchecking that box or unistalling the toolbar. What sneaky little bastards they’ve become.

The ThankYous just keep pouring in … I’m another one. I never did figure it out (and I’m usually pretty good).
Yahoo! is desperate and the desperation is starting to show.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.

Thank you so much!! What a relief to be rid of the thing! You were so right – there was no help anywhere except for this site. I wondered whether it was from a third party, and if so, could it have been sinister.

I will add my voice to the legions of Thank You’s. I tried everything to get rid of the yahoo tab and search conversion. I never thought about an invisible add on. I’ll spread the word and the link to your page

Thanks so much!!! Now my homepage shows and I don’t have to click on the homepage button. My homepage shows automatically but if I want to open up another tab it is blank. How do I get it to show whatever my homepage is?

Thank you, this is the last thing I hadn’t tried yet, I even used firefox safemode and noticed it didn’t load the yahoo page. But as you stated, I never would have guessed that yahoo would be so dirty as to install an invisible addon. The great thing is that it wont bother me anymore, but it is technically still installed on the computer…bastards!

Thanks for the great tip – it worked as prescribed. One upside to running into this annoyance, is I discovered the Firefox add-on called NewTabURL which gives you some additional control over new tabs and it works with Firefox 6… BUT only after the damned Yahoo thing has been disabled with your steps from the post.

It would have been nice if this solution actually worked with Firefox 6, but unfortunately it does not. I never installed any toolbar, Yahoo or otherwise. I still do not know how to stop a new tab from opening with “Yahoo! Search – Web Search”. I would settle for being able to permanently remove or disable the search assist auto-complete function, but no one seems to have a working solution for that either.

I hope Yahoo faces a sustained class action lawsuit which bankrupts this shady company for good.

I no longer use Firefox and thus know nothing about its latest iterations.If I get a chance I’ll look at it and see if I can find a fix. You could try this: Open the Add-ons Manager and go to “Extensions”. Disable “Freeze.comNetAssistant”.

Oh……YEAH……Finally……..Yahoo new tab is gone…………………!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yessssssssssssss.
Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you

My file didn’t have a Safe Mode — I think I may have selected run instead of save , so is it possible that mozilla is running cloud software now? I am so frustrated! I finally just deleted Mozilla and downloaded Chrome….!!!

You are my hero. I can usually troubleshoot my way out of anything with logic alone, but not this time. Thankfully, your article was the FIRST result in a google search, making my endeavor that much easier, and my rewards are great.

My firefox didn’t either. Recall that in his article he says to hold down shift (this only works WHILE firefox is CLOSED) and click on the firefox icon. this sends you into safe mode and gets you to the same place.

MS 7 plus Firefox 4 saves things to your drive a bit differently than in the past, so be attune to the idea that occasionally there will be a new way of doing something, and remember research is your friend.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Even a Luddite, such as myself, could follow your directions and get rid of Yahoo. It felt like I had a virus; yechh! Yours was about the 3rd or 4th site that said they could help me get rid of Yahoo. Yours is the only one that worked. With ease. p.s. I like your writing.

p.p.s. I didn’t see both kinds of Firefox, following the first route suggested. But, followed your directions (while Firefox is closed) to hold the shift key down and click on the firefox icon, which brought up the window with the check-off boxes. And so on.

Thanks so much for this! I have had some issues with Yahoo Mail recently and am starting my move away from Yahoo for mail or anything else. This kind of underhanded infiltration further convinces me that Yahoo doesn’t deserve my support as a customer any longer!

Thank God its gone, but did not get rid of it till I followed the beautiful Flipflops procedure. AS FOLLOWS

After all that tinkering with [about:config], I may have found the simplest solution of all:
-Close all browsers.
-Go to [control panel]
-Click [add/remove programs]
-Remove “net assistant for Firefox” (may also be called “net assistant for Mozilla”)
-That’s it. Restart Firefox and see if it worked.

Thanks Flipflop and by the way your entry was on my birthday . If you ever need connecting with God please let me know roybirvine@yahoo.co.uk

I have this problem now and I hate Yahoo, but thee is NO “Firefox Safe Mode” n my computer even if I have a Firefox version 9.0.1. I looked up in both “START” and under “PROGRAM FILES” under “MY COMPUTER” and nothing! Can you help?

Thanks very much for your assistance in removing the Yahoo tab. This did remove the annoying tab.
It is very disappointing that a company like Yahoo violates our rights by sneaking in through the back door, shame shame.

Thanks! Checking “Disable all add-ons” didn’t quite work for me, I had to also check “Reset all Toolbars & Controls”, “Reset all user preferences to Firefox defaults” and “Restore default search engines.”

Yes, Mozilla should pursue something against Yahoo ( if they already haven’t tried ). I almost gave up using Firefox because of the persistent Yahoo search box.

To get rid of Yahoo on opening new tab problem :
type about:config in address bar and then type yahoo in the filter bar.
select each yahoo entry by right ckicking and go to modify , then delete contents
Restart firefox – hope this works for you too cos it was driving me nuts – originally installed by macafee site advisor.

Had this problem too, could find nothing that would work in above hints except — what’s this? An extension called “Default Tab”? I never installed that!
Removing the Default Tab extension does the trick, in Firefox 10

By the way, to launch Firefox in Safe Mode, just hold down the shift key while clicking on it in the start menu. It still works, at least with this version.

my mother totally BETRAYED me, I’m not kidding, do not trust ANYONE not even your own mother.

my mom made me sign some papers as soon as I turned 18 i thought she had my best interest at heart so I didnt question what the papers were for I thought it was college related stuff or something, but then it turned out it was a massive loan she had taken in my name to pay for my education because she didn’t feel like paying herself or even telling me she was going to make me pay for my own school, she just pretended she was paying for it until debt collectors started hounding me!

You described exactly what my problem is here!!! However, I still can’t solve it. I am using MAC and when I started firefox in safe mode the window didn’t show up to let me disable all add-ons…Please save me!! I am counting on you.

Omg been doing everything to get rid of Yahoo….revo, spybot and more. Anything Yahoo is noxious I’ve found that more hackers/scam artists use Yahoo then any agent in the world – all their add-on features will shatter or slow down your computer, lead to crashes and worse you will get more spyware, malware, trojans and viruses then any system out there. Now I know the reason why that hidden system well ……..thanks for the information but really people should know : Yahoo it crippled my ant-virus by corrupting it? An IT specialist discovered my anti-virus was regularly passing adware via Yahoo!

Actually don’t listen to your mom, my mother told me to smash kittens with hammers in order to succeed at being a man. She also allowed a priest to have sex with me at age 5. Do yourself a favor and don’t ever listen to your mom.

running 15.0 and using SHIFT to start FF in save mode i get this windowhttp://prntscr.com/kpb00
the previous vers gave me the window you attached earlyer in the tread
i’m stuck with that Dam yahoo search again at the mo
thanks for reading
Paul

I’ve tried all the suggestions (Safe Mode, about:config, de-install programs). I don’t seem to have that extension everybody has mentioned, I deleted anything in the Programs that looked suspicious, still no good. I’ve spent way too much time on this b.s. already, so for the time being I’ll just hit the “home” button right after opening a new tab. But, if I were not a man of peace, I would wish for all things connected with Yahoo to perish in flame.

Thank you a lot, I tried a workaround with about:config which did not work, then – luckily – I found this article! If there ever was a so chance – be it almost to little to mention – of me using yahoo, this chance is now gone.

In windows 8 all I did is hold the shift key down when you open firefox and select the “reset firefox” option, which deletes all add-ons, including yahoo’s invisible one, then go back and reload the ones I want. This eliminated the yahoo search page when I open another tab.

This procedure did not work for me. No hidden add-on showed up in firefox. And chrome was compromised, too. At last I searched the registry for “linkury” and found an uninstall link for the linkury program which obviously was the culprit. After uninstalling this program yahoo disappeared from new browser tabs. May they rot in hell.

I have been trying to get rid of this issue the whole day. What I want to know is how to set up a class action against Yahoo to bill for my time and every other persons time who is affected by this problem. One of Google’s CEO’s spoke about his approach to business ethics is “Don’t be evil” . I am sick of having to fix problems on my computer caused when I update applications.

I thought firefox was above this kind of nonsense. When it first happened the posts were from 2010. People claiming to be moderators or Modzilla gurus, stated that the post was to old and you should start a new question. Remind you of anyone, Microsoft perhaps. This can not be a difficult question. Time to find a new browser.

Nolen, you may be hot on the trail. Think I remember Mozilla inviting Yhooooooooo into their browser. Indeed, a lot of good for the consumer stuff seems to be gradually vanishing especially after they kicked out their former ‘Boss.’

My daughters Mac had this issue. It rendered the computer useless. Every search ended up on what looked like an unfinished yahoo page.. Everything on the far left. I got rid of it somehow. I tried everything I could think of. Fixed the date and time which were off on the computer, deleted cookies, browsing history, cashes almost deleted firefox , then didn’t. Removed every browser except google. The last didn’t didn’t do anything . I have no idea what worked. So annoying and makes me never want tobgo near yahoo again.

Thank you! I had the exact same experience and had tried all the same things. Finally today I typed into my yahoo search something like, “I hate you yahoo, why have you hijacked my search?” and I found you! Thanks!

In ver 47 the safe mode dialog box doesn’t open. If you go to Options -> Addons and search for Yahoo in your add-ons. the Obnoxious Yahoo tab ans search add-on is shown. You can the remove it and restart Firefox.

About Neil Kurtzman

Neil A Kurtzman MD is the Grover E Murray Professor Emeritus and University Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Internal Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock. He has combined careers in clinical medicine, education, basic research, and administration for more than 30 years.